44 – the final flush of fertility

44 – the final flush of fertility (and documenting my pregnancy)

Napping with the girls

My second daughter will be here sometime between now and the next full moon. She’s feisty and strong and her kicks sometimes take my breath away. How awesome. ‘Awesome’ – that word is bandied about too much, usually to describe something slightly above mediocrity, but my husband Daniel and I are truly awestruck that my body has grown us another baby. We wonder who will arrive this time? For most of the last 4 ½ years we’ve just stared at Tulsi, hardly believing our luck that this magical creature is ours. And another one is nearly here . . .

Pregnancy is an everyday miracle. We can’t comprehend the trillions of complex decisions and manoeuvres that are unconsciously made within our pregnant bodies. It’s the stuff of Gods, way beyond our human understanding.

Daniel and I have had a long and complex journey with pregnancy, this is my 6th pregnancy and at 44 years old – really, truly, in the final flush of my fertility – we’ve been blessed with another girl. It’ll be Daniel and all his girls and all their tiaras.

Documenting my pregnancy

Astonished that we’ve got this far, I am keen to capture the experience. Once we dared trust that this was indeed a strong pregnancy we began to document it. From 17 weeks I took a ‘bumpie’ shot each week.

She had a good start, Goddessing in the American desert, absorbing ancient cacti karma . . .

There have been numerous pregnancy yoga photos, and last weekend we had enormously messy fun making a plaster cast of my tummy*.

I’d always really hoped to be able to experience pregnancy for a second time. The first time around I had done pregnancy training with the phenomenal Uma Dinsmore Tuli (famous for her groundbreaking book, Yoni Shakti) and since that time, I’d become, I suppose, a little bit more ‘womb centric.’ I began to really notice and value the power of female friendship and what happens when women support each other with kindness, empathy and humour (whether they have children or not).

The beauty and strength of women

I also enjoyed designing and executing our own goddess workshops, and contemplating women’s deeply creative and cyclical connection to nature. I loved teaching pregnancy yoga classes and watching new friendships blossom with growing babies.

And so, as this pregnancy has progressed, so has my sense of connection to mother earth and the miracle that’s happening within me – culminating in the weekend’s ‘project’, which involved Daniel digging a womb-like hole in the sand on the beach, me lying in it naked, and waiting for the waves to wash in. And it wasn’t in the tropics – it was at Saltburn, North Yorkshire. And no, the beach wasn’t deserted; it was well populated by dog walkers, because, well, that’s our reality isn’t it.

As this pregnancy has progressed, so has my sense of connection to Mother Earth.

I am not easy to say no to at the moment, and bless him, my husband is such a good sport, so my insistence of, ‘Daniel I just have to do this,’ meant that that’s just what had to happen.

While I was communing with Mother Earth and the elemental forces of nature and Daniel was taking my photo, I could hear him chatting merrily to passing locals, “Turned out nice again,” “Look what just got washed ashore,” “Yes, she was just like that when I got here,”. Oh my goodness, I do love him.

Weirdly I wasn’t embarrassed, not a jot. When I am pregnant all vanity disappears – I just exist in this state of awe, beguiled by the fact that my body is creating life, and I am utterly thrilled with my pregnant form – how astonishing it is! So what if some of the locals gawped, most walked on by in that true Yorkshire way of “Nowt to see here,” and those that did see – well then what a nice thing to look at and chat about over fish and chips.

Has it been easy? No of course not (life isn’t, I run a popular yoga school and we’ve completely renovated our house during my pregnancy!), I’ve been sick most days, suffered nausea throughout, I’ve had nerve-wrecking insomnia, fainting and anaemia, but all of those are just pregnancy symptoms. I’ve not been ill and this has been a strong, straightforward pregnancy. I feel so lucky and I feel compelled to document my gratitude.

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Lilley Harvey:
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